Alexis Tsipras, the confident and combative hardline Leftist leader of the
Syriza bloc in Greece, has seen his anti-austerity electoral campaign
vindicated.

Previously Greece's fifth largest party, his loose-knit coalition of socialists, eco-Leftists and communists is for the time being calling the shots as the country embarks on a tortuous course to form a new government and complete painful economic reforms.

However, after proving himself to be a popular critic of the status quo, Mr Tsipras, at 37 Greece's youngest political leader, now faces the challenge of proving himself as someone capable of being in, or leading, a government.

So far, he has stuck to the fiery language of opposition and given little clue as to how he would rule.

He declared that the recovery blueprint mandated by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund was "null and void" after its rejection by the Greek people in Sunday's election.

At his party offices in central Athens, officials don't hide their surprise at finishing second and pushing Pasok, the traditional Socialist political force, into third place. The atmosphere is thick with cigarette smoke and desks are cluttered with empty coffee cups. Doors bear stickers proclaiming "Revolution" and there are posters for old Left-wing symposiums in Athens and elsewhere in Europe.

The talk is of the rise of an alternative Left in Europe and the decline of neoliberal capitalism.

It is an atmosphere that Mr Tsipras, a former Communist youth activist, has spent much of his life in, mingled with work as a civil engineer in the construction industry.

A skilled communicator, he rose quickly after leaving the Communists and joining Synaspismos, a Left-wing ecological party. That party is the largest in the Radical Left Coalition formed in 2004 called Syriza, which is fast becoming a familiar name across Europe.

Mr Tsipras entered parliament in 2009 and became leader of the parliamentary group. From the onset of Greek financial crisis in May 2010, when the then Prime Minister George Papandreou of Pasok begged the IMF for help, he has attacked international recovery plans, especially the second, 130 billion euro bail-out, known in Greece as the 'memorandum'.

He successfully tapped into a deep vein of outrage, and for two years, rarely pulled his punches in parliament as he criticised the austerity reforms demanded by international institutions and creditors.

He accused the government of denying reality, argued they were dogmatically adhering to a failed austerity recipe that had already exacerbated a biting recession that has cost thousands of jobs.

"I've lost count how many times you've revised your forecasts," he told ministers during a heated parliamentary debate on the budget in December, pointing to previous estimates of growth in 2012 that had proved inaccurate.

Two months later, in response to pressure from Greece's international creditors for swifter privatisations and more civil service layoffs, he warned: "Soon they will tell us to abolish democracy in return for new loans."

He was born in 1974, a fateful year for Greece which marked the collapse of a seven-year army dictatorship that mercilessly persecuted Leftists and Communists, culminating in a bloody crackdown against a student uprising.

With his strong anti-austerity stance, Mr Tsipras has made few friends in Germany, Europe's paymaster.

Syriza in March sued Germany's Bild newspaper for a million euros after it allegedly portrayed Mr Tsipras as a "half-criminal" who "openly supports violent anarchists".

"Will these radicals soon be governing Greece?", the newspaper wondered at the time.